Various conveying arrangements and devices have been devised and employed through the years for conveying products of various types along predetermined courses of travel between work stations. These various types of conveyors have included reciprocating conveyors, shuffle conveyors, vibratory conveyors, or shaking conveyors. Further, linear motion conveyors have been developed, and which are considered by some users to be operationally distinguishable from the other mentioned types of conveyors.
In this regard, linear motion conveyors or what are sometimes referred to “differential impulse” conveyors include a generally elongated, horizontal tray or pan having a planar surface for transporting goods thereon, During operation of these linear motion conveyors, the tray is moved slowly forward to convey the goods with respect to the tray, and then is pulled rearwardly at a higher return speed so that the goods slide along the tray. The prior art acknowledges that one of the significant advantage of these linear motion conveyors is that fragile goods which are being transported on same may move along in a manner that does not tend to damage them because the products do not roll or tumble or move out of contact with the underlying conveying surface.
Various types of linear motion conveyors have been taught in the art. The Office's attention is directed to U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,757 to Svejkovsky et al. and which shows several forms of a preferred differential impulse conveyor, and method, and which is useful for transporting products. This reference is interesting because of the recited history surrounding the development of conveyors of this style. While this invention suggests that differential impulse conveyors have been preferred in applications such as food handling, and the like, the reality is that this industry segment has not widely embraced these types of conveyors because they have not achieved all the objectives that they claim they were able to produce. Further, such prior art conveyors have tended to generate much more noise, and vibration than what their advocates will readily admit. Typically, these vibrations have been transmitted into underlying supporting surfaces, floors or mezzanines upon which these conveyors were mounted.
Additionally, and because of the physical relationships which exist between the various parts of these prior art conveyors, such prior art conveying arrangements are not readily adjustable so as to provide different conveying speeds, directions of movement, or which further can be readily adjusted so as to either slow down or stop the movement of product along the linear motion conveyor in the event that problems in a production line work station which is located downstream from the linear motion conveyor would require such stoppage of the product motion.
While the prior art arrangements as disclosed in the aforementioned prior art patent, and other devices used in the art, have worked with some degree of success, an acute need has emerged to provide a conveyor arrangement which will allow a product transporting conveyor of the type, which will be described hereinafter, to move product along a given course of travel, and which further can be readily adjusted so as to change the direction or speed of movement of the product, or even stop the movement of the product along the conveying surface depending upon the needs of the user, and without stopping the operation of the invention.
A linear motion conveyor which operates in the manner, as described above, is the subject matter of the present device.